


Lover's Quarrel

by FBIEpidemic



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-05-14 15:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14771961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FBIEpidemic/pseuds/FBIEpidemic
Summary: In the Rocky Mts. surrounded by the testosterone of teenage boys and a four-year-old, along with her distraught mother, Aaron Hotchner and Emily Prentiss can play in the dark but when the light shines down on them... they have what it takes to survive in the concrete jungle of Quantico but do they have what it takes to survive in the wild wounded and scared?





	1. When We Go Down... At Least It's Together

Emily Prentiss hates her boss. She really does and most of the time he makes it so very easy. He seduces her with soft brown eyes, wet trails on her skin from where his lips used to be, and unravels her with his slow fingers. Why can’t he unravel for her as easily as she does for him? 

“Why don’t you take, Em?” Rossi stands leaning against the guest chairs in Hotch’s office. His pepper-flecked goatee lays poorly against his face, neither Hotch nor Emily cares to think that its flattened pattern on the right side suggests someone other than Rossi has been stroking his face. 

At the suggestion of Emily both Hotch and Emily look up, Rossi decides that he won’t say a thing about their reactions. “I could,” Hotch says slowly in that odd way he says most things that he hasn’t quite worked his way around. “However, I haven’t asked the others if they’d like the-”

His slow, calculated speech is cut short by Rossi scuffing. “Honestly, do you hear yourself, Aaron? Don’t act like for a moment that any of them want to go to with you over the Rocky Mountains on a regular airplane to Idaho.” Rossi motions his head to the brunette woman to his right,” Emily, however, can tolerate you for extended amounts of time. She’s going to be the only one who might want to go.”

Emily and Hotch look at each other for several long minutes, neither sure if it’s appropriate or not to just say that they would both like Emily to be the one to go. Luckily, Rossi sees through their silent internal battles. “I suppose it’s decided then,” Rossi takes a step away from Hotch’s desk and claps Emily on the shoulder. “I’ll see you two in a week, huh? Make sure you call after your flight lands and then when you get to the department.”

With no more than a nod to the both of them, Rossi leaves with a satisfied smirk written smartly across his cheeks. 

David Rossi Matchmaker Extroudenar- 1 The Stubborn Ass Brunettes- 0

 

Seated in her economy seat with raging hormones of a baseball team freshly minted with the joys of their championship win, Emily Prentiss is glad that Hotch’s southern charm never really chips away. Otherwise, not only would she have to deal with 20 lanky and overly large high school boys, she would have to deal a sour boyfriend who just so happens to double as a boss.

“Take it easy, Em.” Hotch’s voice comes out in a low rumble, not due to agitation but rather disuse. He talks far less when he’s with Emily, there is no need to. She fills in his silence with vibrant stories of her childhood, ones his own could never shine as bright as and understands when he says nothing at all. 

Her body settles, her shoulder sneaking overtop his, her fingers finding his hand. He never objects, instead he lifts his palm leaving it turned upright, easier for her to slip her own hand in. 

“I wish we could have taken the jet,” Emily’s voice is dangerously close and he can’t help but imagine exactly why it’s a good thing that the two of them didn’t take the jet. The tightness of his pants only intensifying as she leans in close enough to bite loosely at his ear. 

Abandoning her paperwork, Emily opts for people watching. She turns so very slightly in her seat, getting a wide span of the occupants around the plane. The couple only seats away from them only each other, and not just with their eyes. The man’s slender hands had worked their way under the hem of her shirt and if the flush in his face meant anything, Emily would put her money on the two of them joining the mile high club soon. 

Her eyes drift to the rowdy boys but quickly they settle on the only one of the bunch who has managed to remain in his seat. He’s thin with long legs that he’s managed to tuck under his chin. She tilts her head up, he looks familiar in a foreign way like scent that you can’t quite place. 

She turns her head just enough and catches Hotch with his eyebrows pinched deep in thought. Quickly she turns her head back and smiles as she places the boy. Just as Hotch’s eyebrows are drawn so tight in his thought that they almost come together, the young boy matched the look startlingly well. 

“Oh jeez!” Her chairs move sharply as a small makes contact with the back. The voice cutting through her mind just so happens to belong to distraught mother, one who seems like she hasn’t slept in three days. “I’m so sorry.”

Hotch turns his head up to see what had caused Emily to tear away from him but he comes face to face with a little girl. She can’t be much older than Jack, with short pigtails that just barely come to her shoulders.

“Hi!” She smiles cheerily but her mother quickly scoops her up.

“I’m so sorry!”

Hotch’s smile, which nearly matches Emily’s insincerity, calms the mother.

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Hotch says smiling at the young girl,” I’ve got a son about her age, I know how they can be.”

The mother blushes slightly, Emily smiles, and nods her head. Hurriedly, the mother manages to get the girl back in her seat only having to chaste her once with a well placed ‘Sarah Lee!’

Emily settles back against Hotch, letting her head fall against his shoulder. If he minds he never voices it. An hour comes and goes, Emily hardly feels the time pass. 

It’s not until the plane takes a hard jerk to the left that Emily lifts her head up. She had felt Hotch tense up just a moment before and now she sees why. Just outside her window, the engine was blowing thick black smoke towards them.

“Oh God, Aaron.” She grabs his hand, it’s the only thing she can think to do to comfort her racing heart. “What do-”

Hotch had turned away from her. He was looking towards the strides all trying to return the teenagers to their seats. It was then that the suitcases from the overhead apartment came down. The lights with it.

“Aaron!” In the darkness, her hands search over his prone body attempting to rouse him enough to get an answer out of him. Instead, her fingers find his wet, sticky blood which oozes hot and thick from a wound just around his eyebrow. Just as panic began to sit in enough to put a halt in her thinking the plane dips. It happens so quick and hard that the wing breaks sending a jagged piece of metal to hit her side. She’s unconscious before she can even groan out in pain. Her head falls to Hotch’s shoulder. There her head is cradled and even with them both unconscious she’ll remain safe there.


	2. The Boy With Blood Not His Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awake and out of immediate danger, Emily finds herself aiding their new young leader. Things seem like they may not be that bad, they're working on a safe place for their first night, and Hotch is not knocking at death's door. It's relatively okay but nothing can stay that peaceful.

Consciousness greets SSA Aaron Hotchner like hangovers used to when he was in Law School. First, his stomach twists bitterly, reminding him of his empty meals. Then came the inkling of pain up his back to his head. There a dragon would have taken refuge at the base of his neck breathing fire into his skull with every movement. However, when he brings his left hand up to massage the beast which had nestled there so endearingly, his fingers track through something hot and sticky. Incidentally, making his head pound even harder. 

An occupational hazard has him trained so well that he knows without seeing it that his fingers are coated in blood. 

“Mommy!” A tiny voice over his left shoulder wails and when her cry goes unnoticed the cries continue. 

Hotch lifts his head, turning to find Emily but there is no warmth on his shoulder, no brunette hair tangled on the pillow next to his. Her seat is empty and his mind can’t think past the thick cloud of the little girl's screams. 

He rises to his feet, clutching the ruins of the seat in front of him to keep him that way. He looks around him… the plane is almost baren. He tests his footing, walking but leaning heavily on seats around him. “Honey,” it’s the first term of endearment he can think of because for the life of him he can’t think of this damn kids name. “I gotcha,” he leans down, making his spin but the kid reaches up letting him lift her up. 

She weighs almost nothing and yet his body screams in protest.

“Aaron!” He turns, far too quickly, and he has to grab on to the chair to keep from falling to the ground. 

Emily stands just feet away seemingly unscathed by the wreckage all around them, surrounded on both sides by men younger than him but older than the boys on the baseball team. She covers the ground separating them quickly, coming to his aide.

“Are you okay?” Her hands are roaming all over his body and they probe roughly in places that feel as if they shatter just upon her gaze. He jerks from her touch, roughly. She’s thrown back, not literally but emotionally. It’s enough to make her step away from him as if his skin burned her. 

She turns to the younger men, whom she appears to have bent to her whim, and nods towards Hotch. “Help him out?” She doesn’t pass a look at Hotch but uses her head to motion to him. “Let them help you, Aaron,” her voice comes out breathy as if she’s been running.

Emily turns away, leaving Hotch to the demise of the younger men, and makes her way to another part of the plane. The smoke burns her lungs but she’s so damn mad that she keeps walking into the thicker smoke. She has an odd idea of where she’s going more of an absolute answer than anything else. She keeps going farther and farther until she’s hit with bright blinding light. She turns sharply away from it, knowing all too well that what she’s found is the missing cockpit or rather the lack of. It’s just snow… as far and wide as the eye can see. 

She stumbles back from it, landing hard on the ground as her feet tangled under her. She pushes away from the edge, it’s jagged cut-off terrifying.

“Aaron!” For the first time since she’s known him, Hotch never comes. He never rescues her like he’s done time and time again. She has to collect herself, wiping dried mascara from around her eyes. She is Emily Prentiss and she always will be with or without Aaron Hotchner.

 

Little Sarah sits patiently on the rock that the short man put her on. She didn’t really like the short man, he smelled weird. However, the tall man, who sat in front of her and her mom, she likes him. He smelled really nice and he was tall and he called her ‘honey’. Only her mommy ever calls her that. 

She watches her mother now from the rock. Her mom is alright, at least Sarah thinks. Sarah can see a little bit of blood in her mother’s hair but Sarah doesn’t understand why her mother’s sleeping. The tall man isn’t sleeping and he’s got more blood. 

When Sarah spots the woman, the one that was sitting with the tall man, she jumps off the rock. Trudging through the snow, which she found surprisingly high, she makes her way to the woman. Sarah watches her with an odd fascination. Adults confuse her. They’re just really odd. Why do they enjoy staring at nothing?

“Ma’am?” That’s what her mommy said to call a woman who you didn’t know. Sarah waits for Emily to turn to her and eventually Emily does peer down at the little girl. “Uhm…” Sarah sticks her thumb in her mouth, her mommy said she shouldn’t do that but her mommy is sleeping. “What is your name?”

Emily bends down, making herself the same height as the small child in front of her. “My name’s Emily, your’s is… Sarah, right?”

Sarah nods, a small smile forming around the thumb in her mouth. “My mommy’s name is Lynn! What’s the man’s name?” Sarah motions to Hotch with her chubby little finger. 

Emily stands, Sarah’s question no longer present in her mind. She leaves Sarah standing in her shin deep snow by herself, moving as quickly as she can to Hotch. The older man was beginning to sway and if she didn’t get to his side within the next few moments, gravity would have him falling hard into the unforgiving snow. 

“Aaron,” her voice sounds like it’s coming from miles away to his sluggish mind. He can’t recall a time when he’s ever felt this bad.

When his father had slammed him into Sean’s dresser he remembers that it had knocked him silly. He couldn’t even stand straight for a month after that. Not even the time his father beat him with one of the hearth tools sets pieces, he’d done such a number Hotch can’t even remember which of the pieces he used. He’s still got a scar on the back of his leg from it.

“Aaron!” She’s calling his name again but he doesn’t see her. He needs to apologize to her, she couldn’t have possibly known that she hurt him when they were on the plane and she was just trying to help.

“Easy, easy.” 

Emily never reaches Hotch in time. A man, one she had not seen, is there instead. He catches around the shoulders doing it effortlessly as if the man weighed nothing. Emily comes to his aide, catching at Hotch’s left hand which comes up to protect himself from an enemy that even he doesn't see. 

“I need a blanket over here!” The younger’s man is strong and gentle as he eases Hotch into laying back. “I gotcha, pal. Just lean on back.”

Hotch pays him almost no mind. The pain in his head is overwhelming and he can only think about one thing. “E-Emily?” His hands move restlessly, his body grounded but his mind is on a one-way mission. “Emily?”

She moves as close as she can, ignoring the cold bite of the snow. She runs a hand through his wet hair,” I’m right here, Aaron.” His skin is already too warm, feverish, and she’s afraid of what the next few hours will bring. 

“I-I’m sorry.” He stutters as his teeth jump and chatter. 

She plants a small kiss on the top of his head and continues stroking his hair,” it’s okay. It’s okay.”

 

 

“The smoke has cleared, the fire is out.” It turns out, the younger man who caught Hotch not only has great timing but is a U.S. Marshall, and a useful one at that. “We need to use the plane as shelter, otherwise we’ll all die, the wounding going first.”

Collectively, with Sarah’s mother still being unresponsive, they have decided to take turns caring for Sarah in shifts. Right now, it’s Emily’s turn to entertain Sarah. Emily just got lucky enough that Sarah finally passed out from all the excitement and is snuggled close to Emily. 

“We need to gather all the supplies that were thrown out by Emily’s recon men and we need to bring all the seats and tear them up for beds.” The younger man takes charge as if it is his given right and the way he talks, so sure and confident in himself, Emily isn’t going to be the one to say anything. Afterall, he did help Aaron. “The wind and snow will kill us and seeing just how many of us are wounded, our numbers will drop drastically tonight if no one night if we can’t get this done.”

With everyone still strong enough to walk out in the cold, dragging the wounded and whatever valuables they can get their hands on. Compared to running in and out of the burning plane, helping drag men and women alike out of its smokey confines, their mission at hand is much easier. 

Emily works alongside the young man, her attention going into stripping the fabric off the seat as well as possible to preserve as much cushion as possible. She gets through several before the young man, who remains nameless after all this time, reaches out, grabbing her hand in order to get her attention as well. 

“The Agent, the one from earlier, he’s awake.” His voice is caring and kind, Emily doesn't appreciate it. “He’s making his way in here now with the next wave of the injured. He’s asked for you.” 

Although the young man is flattering and kind beyond words, Emily finds him slowly becoming too much. As if he’s playing a role and not acting like himself. She won’t act on these feelings not until he does something unkind and for right now, he’s done nothing of the sort. 

Emily releases the cushion she was working on and makes her way to the cabin where they had decided they would all sleep tonight. Already, most of the young men who helped her get the injured out of the plane are bunked up. Their bodies slumped together to preserve heat. If she remembers correctly, they would take the first few shifts tonight as everyone else sleeps.

“Miss Emily!” Little Sarah looks up from where she had been seating on Hotch’s makeshift bed. Whoever was in charge of watching the young girl had left her with the semiconscious agent who had been entertaining her with lies from his childhood.

Emily smiles and returns the young girls waves just as eager as she receives them.

Sarah waits for Emily to get close to the bed before she throws her arms up and demands to be held. Emily picks Sarah up, positioning the small child on her hip.

“Miss Emily, Mr. Aaron was telling me about me about when he fell into a pond!” The little girl kicks her legs eagerly, gently nudging at Emily’s sore sides with her shoe-clad feet. Emily simply ignores the little feet sending shock waves of pain up her body, it isn’t that bad and she’d rather not upset the girl and smiles down at Hotch.

“Was he really?” Emily takes Hotch’s hand in her own and gives it a firm squeeze. She doesn’t like the far-off look in his brown eyes but it’s not like she can do anything about that.

“Mmmm,” is all Hotch says, a simple content hummin response. 

“Did he tell you-”

A scream pierces through the relative calm of the cabin. The scream belongs to the boy from the plane, the ones whose eyes and face mirrors her Aaron’s strikingly. He stands now at the makeshift door made of torn clothes and stacked luggage bags, blood has seeped into his clothing and he shakes like a rag doll. “It’s not mine!” He calls, lifting his thin arms above his head. “It’s not mine!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you in advance for your kudos and comments!!


	3. This is All David Rossi's Fault

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I haven't updated in literally forever but I just wasn't getting good ideas for this next chapter and then today I pumped out an entire chapter in a day so let's hope this makes up for it... more or less

As she stands, scrubbing blood off of the hands of a boy no older than seventeen, she vows some vague vengeance on David Rossi. It’s his fault she’s here. It should have been Reid because that’s probably who would have drawn the short straw or who Aaron would have hand-picked because where the other’s found his ramblings to be nothing more than space fillers. Their boss enjoyed his banter, it keeps him on his feet and on a case like the one they were just starting to get to solving, he needs it. Instead, Rossi had put his nose into their business, and most importantly their relationship and now she’s somewhere in the Rocky Mountains with a wounded boyfriend and what looks to be a serial killer.

Screw you, Rossi, just screw you.

“M-M-Ma’am?” The boy looks up at her and for the first time, she notices that he’s got grey eyes. Shattering his otherwise perfect replication to Aaron. They suit him still.

She smiles briefly at him, attempting to diminish whatever fear may have caused him to bring out his manners but if what she suspects is true, she won’t be able to shake his charm away. “You can call me Emily. What do you need?”

As he gets the nerve to ask or say whatever it is he’s heading at, she watches the Marshal make rounds with the people. He’s becoming far too comfortable with their position. As if the unworking black box was something that only classified as a minor seat back. Then there came his too access to the fire. More quickly than he should have been able to, he had three fires roaring for people to gather around. 

Perhaps the crash had made her paranoid or maybe the man really wasn’t to be trusted.

“I-I’m sorry. I just had to go to the bathroom but I saw her out there and… a-and…” the boy trails off, head ducking to hide the tears trailing down his cheeks. She’d seen things like this one to many times. Not just in kids but her own boyfriend. 

She soothes his tears, running a finger under his eyes to brush them away. “Hey-Hey, don’t cry. You did nothing wrong. Nothing at all.” She waits a moment more before adding,” I think it might help if you talk to someone? Hmm? My buddy over there-” She points over to where Hotch is settled, Sarah pulled close to his chest as they both drift in and out of a nap. “I think he could really do with a distraction. What do you say? Will you talk to him?”

He inspects Hotch, no doubt looking over the yellowing bruises up and down his chin. Admittedly, he looks almost human. Like he’s no longer the tough as nails BAU unit chief who orders agents around and who can silence a room with a glare. No, he just looks like a guy cuddling a scared kid. 

“Okay.”

Emily urges him over, instructing him to tell Aaron that she sent him over. That he won’t be mad that he was woken up.

She watches him walk over, shooting little glances back at her as he approaches the bed and she can see his shoulders sag in relief as Aaron’s eyes open on their own when he senses a hovering presence. He shifts on his makeshift cot, tilting his head in attention as the boy fumbles over his words and briefly points to Emily. 

“Hey, Emily!” The Marshall makes his way over to Emily, jogging to come across space between them as fast as possible. “Listen, those guys you had helping you earlier? They asked me to come to get you. They want you out there for something. I figure they’re right. We really could use your help out there since you’re FBI and all.”

She glances over at Aaron. She really shouldn’t leave him alone with two kids and Sarah’s injured mom. 

“Don’t worry,” he interjects,” I’ll stay here. Hold the fort down.”

So she agrees. He supplies her with a coat and the gloves he had on his hands. He wraps the rope around her waist,” we’re all tied off out there. A storm could come through and boom, you’re just gone so this way we can get back safe.”

He secures her to a jagged strip of the plane with a smile and knot. “See ya’ when you get back.”

And so she steps out into the snow, sinking in its first few layers of soft snow.

“Emily!” She’s greeted by the boys with cheerful waves and even a hug. 

“Hello boys,” she turns to the body, they shouldn’t be out here. They’re young, underage, and yet so eager to learn and help. It would be more damaging to send them away at this point. “Any footprints leaving?” 

She can visibly see the jagged wounds and knows too well that it was the handy work of a hunting knife. She’d never verbally say it but they match Aaron’s after Foyett and it’s the only reason she can say for sure because almost every night for a while now she’s seen them. 

“Nope.” 

There is little to nothing out here. The snow is slowly covering the woman’s face and body and any evidence she could collect is soiled. This is hopeless. “Alright, listen boys-”

She’s cut off by gunshots. Too many to be coming from only one person. And there are only two people with guns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments and kudos!


	4. Smells Like Teen Spirit

She looks at the wall in front of her. The expansion of just grey as far and wide as she can see. Except that’s a lie. She can see more. The melted rose petals of too many ‘He loves me, He loves me not’ and cheating to get to ‘He loves me’ that mark up her flesh. Purple warped into her scarred knuckles. Those petals aren’t a foolish girls attempt at having something more and the purple isn’t the sky melting down, it’s blood and bruises.

She knows that she’s probably missed her only chance to really tell him how she feels. How she loves him. Because she’s thought about it far too many times. She has a method, one that she’s perfected and now she won’t ever be able to tell him. 

One that she has a slim chance of being able to tell him.

“Say it,” his voice is rough, hard and barely there but she’s watching him so closely she couldn’t have missed it. He tries to reach for her face, to cup her cheek, he loses all his strength and instead brushes a thumb against her wrist.

She shakes her head, ignoring the way her tears fall down her cheeks... “I won’t. I won’t because you’ll stop fighting.”

He shakes his head, a small, hardly there movement. “...won’t. I, I’m, I’ll stay.” He shudders as his body forces his body to contract but a cough dying in his chest as he becomes too weak to let it escape. “Please, Emily. Say it.”

She takes his hand in hers, pulling his hand to her cheek just as he attempted to do. He smiles at her movement, unaware of the blood seeping from his mouth and staining his crooked teeth and uneven dimples. “I can’t.”

He shudders again, this time a cough rattling it’s way out of his chest, jerking his body as blood pools in the back of his chest. “Emily. I love you.”

He moves a finger across her skin, drawing her in. “I know.”

He coughs again, this time losing his grip on staying awake and alert. His vision goes black for a long moment but he’s brought back with Emily’s urgent calls. “Say-Say it. I want, I want to see you say it,” his thumb hovers over her lips, touching her soft skin with each quiver of his hand. “I like, like the way you say it.”

 

His eyes fall for a moment but he opens them again and she has to look away to keep her composer. To stop herself from bending over, drawing him close, and sobbing into his chest because right now she just wants him to hold her. “Don’t make me. I’ll say it a billion more times, I promise but not now. Please, not now.”

But he doesn’t say anything else.

“I love you,” she sobs, pinching her face together to keep her tears at bay but they just roll down her cheek. “So, you can’t go anywhere. You can’t die.”

“Not.” That’s all he has for a promise, one that he hopes to keep but doubts his ability to make it worthwhile.

 

 

Sixty Minutes Before:

Seated on his stretched legs, Sarah teaches him to play patty-cake. Admittedly, he’s not very good at it but Sarah giggles on and it even seems to lift the boy’s spirits too. 

“What’s your name?” He’s lost another round of patty cake to little Sarah and now, as she plays with his badge, he’s found the time to really study the young man at his side. 

The boy studies Hotch with an identical eye, metaphorically and literally, and almost jumps out of his skin at Hotch’s gruff voice breaking through his thoughts. “Sam.” 

Sarah tugs at his hand, or really just his index and middle finger because that’s all she can get in her tiny fist, and distracts him for a moment. Sam doesn't seem to mind, he simply watches the interaction. 

“So, Sam, do you have any hobbies?” Of course, by the looks of Sam, he seems to be more of a brains kind of kid. The one that runs track or does scholastic bowl but football or basketball is out of the option, the kid is too small.

Sam can’t think of a single thing even though he’s active enough, enough to make people not notice the things about him that are no good. Luckily, Sarah swoops in distracting once again with the ability of the young and innocent. Of someone unaware and precious

“Track. I can run fast.” 

Hotch stops, his hand held up as Sarah uses it in her jabbering because that’s exactly what he used to tell people when they asked him why he ran track. Suddenly, his mind is catching up with all of the boy’s behavior and he feels rage overcome him. “Sam-”

The room erupts in noise, yelling and men and bodies moving all at once. A shot rings out and Hotch jumps from the bed. Landing on the pads of his feet and his hand hovering over his gun,” Sam get under the cot with Sarah.”

He’s already trembling with the effort it takes to keep himself up on his feet and his vision fades for a moment but he stumbles forward anyways,” hey!” 

It’s a man, the one from the plane that he faintly recalls from other moments, the gun in his hand perfectly steady and Hotch knows that this won’t end well. “List-”

The first bullet hits harder than Hotch can recall other bullet wounds. The one that leaves his chamber follows it right after, not because he’s thinking about it but because muscle memory has him pulling the trigger and killing the other man without hesitation. 

It takes him a long moment to understand what’s happening around him. His knees waver and he slumps to the ground, unfamiliar hands and scents hovering around him as someone lowers him to the ground. 

“We’re going to need something to stop the bleeding,” the voice is male and just over his head. He feels fingers digging into his flesh and he’s distracted momentarily by what sounds like a child's screams. 

“Sarah,” he tries to fight his way up, to get to the sobbing child but someone pushes him back down.

Dark hair brushes across his field of vision,” tampons. We’ve got a good supply, actually. Just get around that and stick them in.” He can hear the bravery mixed with insecurity and he knows it’s a teenager speaking. 

“Aaron!” He’d know her voice anywhere and he feels strength return to his bones but she never collapses at his side. She never comes.

Around him, the man from earlier and the teenager told the others to keep Emily away. That they can’t help Hotch with her crying right there.

“Is he dead?” Emily asks, watching as the man talks with the teen. They, although separated greatly by age and knowledge, speak respectfully to one another. The man, whom they come to learn is an ER doctor, encourages the younger teen. Telling her that her idea is brilliant and asks if she’s up to help him extract the bullets.

“No, they’re working-”

She’s not sure who’s talking to her right now but she doesn't mind her manners,” no. Not him, the other-” The Marshall. She wants him dead and she prays it was Aaron’s bullet that did it.

The woman who she had interrupted nods her head,” he shot him. I don’t know how but he did. It was a headshot, nothing anyone could do.”

“Good.”

The teen holds a pair of scissors in her hand, glancing at the doctor as he stands over her shoulder. “Cut horizontally. You can do it, I need you to, he needs you to.” If she can cut deep enough to get the bullet that means the doctor can shunt the bleeding faster. 

“Okay,” with one long breath, she cuts.

 

 

“Is he going to die?” Sam and Sarah had watched the surgery and they had watched Emily hold Aaron as close as she could. It’s just so uncertain at this point if he’ll make it or not or if he’s already…

Emily looks up, they’d made Hotch’s cot as comfortable as possible. People had given up clothes and blankets in the hopes that the agent would make it through the night. With the doctor coming by every ten minutes to check his pulse, it left little time for anyone to get any shut-eye, leaving the entire plane on edge. 

“No,” it’s neither the doctor or Emily that answers them but the teen. The teen with Hotch’s blood staining her fingers,” I did not just cut a hole in him with scissors for him to die. He’ll be fine.”

She sounds so sure, so positive, that Emily almost believes her.


	5. Eye of the Storm

“None of that,” boneless, that’s the best word to describe him and his current state. Given everything they’ve been put through from the last hour, he’s got ample the right. It’s just not the time because she needs him to fight and he doesn’t seem to be doing a whole lot of that. 

His eyes open back up, they remain out of focus as he is unable to see her clearly. His lips open, he attempts to force his voice to work but his cracked lips offer no movement. No sound. 

“Hush,” her finger comes over his lips and she brushes strands of his hair out of his face. “Just lay here,” she wants to hold him like this forever, to never have to let go. She knows that if someone doesn’t come within the next few hours, she’ll have to let him go. 

She’s staring down at him, watching as he chokes on his saliva and shives from chills she can’t suppress. Inside her head, she’s got an entire monologue of things that she needs to tell him. All kinds of things that she just never said. One escapes her lips, soft and almost not there. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me”

He looks up at coughing up thick blood that she has to brush off of his too blue lips. He shudders once in her arms and for a moment she fears that he’s gone but he makes a sound, deep in his chest and mumble,” wish you’d never meet me.” 

His eyes open again, giving her the first glimpse of Aaron Hotchner that she’s seen since their plane went down,” wouldn’t be here. Be safe. Home.” She can see that that simple sentence has taken his strength and for several long moments, all that can be heard between them is his low raspy breaths. “Better.” He slowly creeps his left hand, the one that she isn’t gripping tightly, to his chest. He taps his own chest, twice, with his pointer finger. He takes a moment to pull it up both times, it’s physically daunting,”… no good.”

Tears slip down her cheek. She’s been with this man for no more than a few months. They’ve been friends since she was a college student and this is what it’s going to come to. Years of yearning for one another cut short because of a man with a gunshot his way between them. 

“That’s okay.” She attempts to soothe him, bending over his body to kiss his forehead,” you don’t know you that way I do.”

 

Spencer Reid is not a God-fearing man. He doesn’t believe in a God so to fear one would be redundant and he doesn't that. Yet, as he sits in the cabin, crammed in with a select few of his other team members and he’s haunted.

Surely, if there is a God, even if he doesn’t believe, he wouldn’t hurt Emily and Hotch the way he does. The two of them only just got one another and already they have been thrown into another tragedy. 

Frankly, Reid is tired of looking at his best friends, the two members of the team who hold them together like glue, who treat him both as a knowledgeable human being whom they can trust and like the young man that he is. A young man who needs guidance and sometimes a parental figure. He just feels so helpless and nothing can prepare him for what he finds. 

God, the deity comes back in question as Reid steps off the helicopter. Everyone follows behind him, Morgan and a man whom Reid hasn’t meet lead them. What Reid thinks, what he feels as he steps off his anger. 

Snow, as far as the eyes can see litters the ground. They can see the emergency lights shining, dying from where they are. Although the sun has gone down right now the light is a priority but finding survivors surpasses even that. Keeping the survivors alive, that’s what he needs to be worrying with.

Survivors, that’s who he hears screaming. It’s the woman standing, waving just in front of a bit of the plane. She’s crying when they get to her, and she hugs Morgan tightly and laughs and cries with joy. “You made it just in time. You’re going to need stretchers, about twelve.”

They had only brought what they could, three per each helicopter. Getting the victims back would be dangerous and tedious, as they are unable to bring more than one to two stretchers on each helicopter. They do, however, possess the tools and men to do life-saving medical treatment from here.

“Emily!” Reid jerks his head, seeing Morgan first and following the black man’s line of sight to their brunette friend. She’s seated on the ground when she looks up and as soon as she sees them she gets to her feet and runs, full speed, at Morgan. 

He catches her without reprieve.

She’s sobbing, Reid can hear it and it scares him more than the fear that Hotch may be dead or that Emily may be injured. He’s reminded of his uncertainty he felt at Haley’s funeral, the way that he glanced at his boss far too frequently. Because what if he leaves? He can’t leave, they need him. But it seems that the people Reid needs the most don’t ever come to understand how important they are.

“Hotch…” the older man’s name falls dead off his lips. He’s standing over the man who has always been there for him and he’s confused and hurt. “Hotch?” He bends over, years of training telling him to reach out for the man’s neck and search for a pulse but somehow doing that would be admitting defeat. 

“He’s alive,” Reid isn’t sure when it is that Emily walked up behind him or even put a comforting hand on his shoulder but she’s there now and he can’t bring himself to be shocked by her proximity. “Barely but your timing is brilliant, he’ll be okay.”

They watch him take a shuddering breath and exhale. 

It’s evident just how severe he is.

“What the hell happened here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I meant to update this sooner but school started back and I've been applying to colleges and searching for scholarships and it's only freaking August and I'm already a mess... anyway, next time I procrastinate doing my work you'll get an update and seeing that I've got some deadlines coming up... expect me.


	6. A Long Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments help me write faster!

Emily Prentiss stands at the edge of the plane. Looking over the vast area of snow and doing her best to distract herself from the hoarse moans as the doctors fix Hotch and many others with what little pain medicine they were able to bring.

Sam and Sarah stay by her side. They had taken to one another. Sam holds her, using his body to shield her from the wind that blows softly. For once it isn’t loud and hard, the one time when everyone wishes they had something else to listen to.

“Well, who are these stunning individuals?” Dave walks up behind them and smiles at Sarah when she peeks out of her blanket at him. 

He had been allowed to stay with Hotch while Emily was told to get her distance. She knows it’s because he stayed strong. He stood at Hotch’s side and held his hand and she broke down when she heard him cry out in pain. 

Sam eyes Dave untrustingly, looking at Emily when he continues to approach. Some unselfish part of her comes to the surface and she’s drawn out of her pity party,” it’s okay, Sam. This is Aaron and I’s friend, Dave. He won’t hurt you guys.”

However, she doesn’t have it in her to worry with Sarah’s mother. Lynn, that’s the woman’s name. She’s not worried about Lynn because Sarah’s safe with Sam and Aaron’s probably going to die. 

“Is he okay?” They both know what she really means. _Is he dead_ but she can’t say that with Sarah and Sam right there.

Rossi waves to Sarah and smiles when she hides against Sam’s shoulder. “He’s hanging on. He’ll be one of the first out in the morning.” He smiles again when Sarah peeks out to stick her tongue out at him.

Emily nods her head, smiles reassuringly at Sam when he looks at her but tries to keep the panic she feels held down. 

“Mr. David?” Sam turned to face Rossi a glare coming across his face. “You need to make sure Aaron is okay. He saved me and Sarah. He didn’t have to do that.” 

Dave has to admit, the young man before him reminds him startlingly of Aaron when he first hired the young cop. So takes the teens words for what he wants them to be taken as, seriously. “I’ll tell you what,” Rossi tilts his head at the young man,” I promise that I will take care of Aaron as best that I can but I need you to do something for me in return.”

For a moment the boy thinks that he’s being played a fool. That, not for the first time, he’s being treated like a child instead of a young adult. Instead of the rational human being that he is. 

“You take care of that little girl? Yeah? I’m sure Aaron would want that, don’t you?” Rossi watches the nobility play across the young man’s face and smiles at the fond look that he gives the small girl in his arms. 

Sarah knows their talking about her and she sticks her head out,” I can take care of myself!”

Sam smiles, and hikes her up more onto his hip,” you have yourself a deal, Mister.”

Sarah scowls at Sam but he smiles anyway and attacks her sides with his fingers. Their deal to protect her is soon out of her mind as she thrashes in his arms and he fights to keep them both upright.

“I’m sorry. About everything.” Rossi says, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She doesn’t find the nerve to look him the eye but nods her head,” you couldn’t have possibly known that we were going to get on a plane with a bloodthirsty US Marshal.” A soft, forced smile crosses her face,” unless you did know and in that case, fuck you, Dave, because that sucked.”

He just shakes his head, unable to do much more. Emotionally, he’s exhausted. “Course not. Now come on, he’s asleep and I know these kids need some sleep too so let’s go lay down. Huh? The last thing we need is for Aaron to wake up and have something to bitch at us for.”

 

 

Dave had meant well, Emily knows, by ushering Sam and Sarah to their own cots to sleep but if she feels panicked when she is no longer able to see them when she knows they feel the same. So she waits for Rossi to fall asleep at his post. 

He’s the only person she knows will be bothered by her empty cot. 

She eases past the other people around her. Some sleep on makeshift cots like her own- Well, like Aaron’s because this was Aaron’s bed before he became apart of the men and women who now lay on stretchers that await transfer. 

“Emily?” JJ raises her flashlight when she sees a figure stepping around medical equipment and busted suitcases. 

Emily puts a finger over her mouth, glancing back at Rossi and communicating to the blonde that she must be quiet. “I just wanted to check on Aaron and the kids.” It’s the truth so she’s not surprised when JJ motions her in the direction of the people she seeks. 

“He looks awful,” it’s the first thing Emily thinks of when she sees Hotch tied down to the stretcher. His arms and legs are literally tied down and she wonders why it is that they needed to do that to him. But she also knows that if he was in a great deal of pain or even marginally aware when they came to his aid he would have fought. 

JJ doesn’t find her observation humourous, just true. “Yeah,” she smiles softly. “He woke up a fear hours ago… why didn’t you tell me you guys were together?”

Emily almost denies it. She almost lies to her best friend but it’s obvious that whatever delirium that Aaron’s wounds brought upon him, he must have called out to her. Or maybe, for once in his life, Aaron Hotchner opened up to one of his friends in a moment of desperation and told them about her. 

She knows it’s more rational to think the first. 

“To protect us.” Is what she says at first but shakes her head,” to protect me. He thinks that he could put me in danger.” They never said it out loud but she knows that’s what it comes down to. 

She reaches out and takes his hand and runs her thumb across the cold digits.

“He’s such a dumb man,” JJ says, and the fondness and sincerity of her voice speak to how much she means that sentence. “You’ll have to fix that, you know? For all of us? Make think he’s worth it, please?”

Emily had never really thought about it. About the relationship that JJ shares with Hotch, how close they had become when Hotch had thought he had no one. 

“I think we both know that something like that will always be lost on him,” Emily strokes back a strand of hair and smiles when his eyelashes flutter. It takes a moment but they open and find her in the darkness.

He opens his mouth and her name forms on his lips but no sound comes out. She leans down, close enough to kiss him, and shushes him gently. Her hands remain on his hair. She strokes softly until he stops trying to fight against sleep and he gives up. 

“I love you,” she whispers it against his cheek and traces a heart into his palm. He opens his mouth again and she smiles when she sees the words across his lips. She kisses him. Short but sweet and holds his head to hers for a moment until she’s sure he’s fallen back under. 

Reid watches the interaction and bumps Morgan with his shoulder,” did you know that Hotch and Prentiss were… you know?”

Morgan seats up and squints across the room to the hovering figure of Emily. “No, but it’s about damn time.”

Reid makes a face,” ew. Why would it be about time? They haven’t-”

“Dude,” Morgan smacks him with his pillow,” I haven’t slept for two days now. We finally found them and I think I can finally fall asleep because I’m not freaking out about finding them. So, please, for the love of God shut up and be happy for them.”

Morgan’s body hits the ground hard as he rolls away from Reid and tries to sleep.

One thing is for sure, it’s going to be a long night.


	7. Figuring It Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to write a book but I have this terrible thing called a brain. I'm afraid I haven't quite figured out what it would be about. What the hell is left to write about?

To say that two people are together is one thing. It’s just words and an abstract idea but the important key is the intimacy that oftentimes, one wishes to forget. 

JJ sees it first, it’s that gentle exchange that she watches happen. Emily’s soothing hand on his chest as she presses a kiss to his brow. Hotch isn’t there in that moment but for a brief second, JJ can see that he recognizes her. There’s a flash of a smile and she can’t hear the hoarse words but she does know that they love each other. That’s enough.

Rossi happens upon them by accident. The countdown is beginning, they have five minutes until the helicopter is ready for lift off. Until Emily must bid Hotch farewell for the next several hours perhaps even a day or two. He’s not supposed to be poking around but he’d misplaced his notebook. Turns out, he’s not the only one doing things he shouldn’t. He finds Emily curled up on the stretcher that Hotch had been bound to. The man that she holds so tenderly now, whispering sweet nothings into his ear as he loses his battle with the drugs coursing through his veins. 

Reid stands alone. His back taking the lashes that the wind bestow upon him. He keeps his eyes to the side, monitoring the scene happening before him. Emily is tearing herself away from Hotch. Tears are almost freezing to her cheeks as she pulls her hand out of his. Turning away when he calls weakly, trying to reach out for her. 

“He’s going to crash.” It’s all the warning Emily needs and she gives Hotch one last kiss before hurrying away. The snow kicks up behind her and Reid wonders how it feels to love someone that much. 

 

 

Emily Prentiss is faithful. Her team already knows but the magnitude of faithfulness that she demonstrates as she seats by their leader's side, it’s simply painful. She should kiss his temple and leave to shower and treat her own wounds and yet she remains. Stuck, glued, tied in place at his side. 

“Em,” Morgan puts a hand on her shoulder,” Princess, he’ll be alright. Come on. Come home, get some clothes and take a shower.” He means well, true but the problem is that she can’t. She just… can’t.

She shakes her head and her hand grips Aaron’s tighter. As if he can keep her rooted there with him. “Derek, I know you mean well but I can’t let him wake up alone. I’m always here and if he wakes up alone…” her thought trails and she looks over at Aaron, biting her lip to fight off tears. 

Morgan loses his will. Everyone outside the room is rooting him on, begging him to be able to pull her away to take care of herself. He’s not ready to let them all down. “Promise me,” he leans down and presses a kiss to her brow. “You’ll take care of yourself. Hotch would never want… Just be careful.”

She’s left once again and finds herself almost yearning someone else’s company but not really. 

“You really have to wake up,” she brushes a hand over his cheek. It’s rough, scratchy from the hair that managed to accumulate there over the last few days. These last few awful days. “I promised you a thousand more ‘I love you’s and of course, you have to be here to get them.”

She presses a soft kiss to the scruff there.

 

 

“I love you.”

Every day comes to the same beginning and end. 

She comes in with a tender kiss and an endearment and leaves with a tearful goodbye and her hardest ‘I love you’. Now, as she turns her back, rolling her hands through her hair to pull it into a bun she misses the hand that twitches and reaches out for her.

“Em’ly?” 

She stops her hair band halfway through her hair and turns to him. 

“Aaron!” She wants to smother him in hugs but she’s held back. She’s terrified she’ll hurt him or that after everything they’ve been through…

“You haven’t been in there!” JJ’s voice carries down the hall and Garcia isn’t much better. 

“You love him, Em! He loves you! You can’t do that to him.”

Turns out, she can. 

It’s just not that easy. 

“He needs you.” A 911, something reserved for those moments where blood sugar or something is so low that in that moment, death is so imminent that if Emily ever wants to think she’s a decent human she has to get the hospital.

Sitting in her car, driving at a breakneck speed, her head full of all of the things that could warrant a 911. 

“He’s…” David Rossi stands outside Hotch’s room. His arms are crossed and he stares down the hall, waiting for her. “He’s down in PT. Pushing himself, he’s going to work himself into the ground, Em.”

Emily just stands in the hall.

Aaron woke up five days ago. Five days ago Aaron was left to face his own demons. That hasn’t gone over well.

“Stop.”

Her voice bounces off of the room’s walls with the authority she doesn’t process and that he lost. 

Yet, posed with a hand on the bars at his side, shaking as they hold most of his weight, he stands still. They just look at one another.

She moves forward, coming between those bars and hooking an arm under both of his and baring his weight with nothing more than a surprised grunt at how much more weight he’s lost. “You’re too skinny.” 

He grips her shirt as she eases them both to the padded mats. She sees the wet spots along it and wonders how many times he’s fallen. 

“I can feel your ribs.” She drags her hand up his side, gently. His piano key spine sticks out more than it did the last time she plucked a tune out of him. The scruff from last week is almost a shady beard. The eyes that have she’s gotten so used to seeing in the morning are dull and sad. 

It’s her fault. 

She cups his face, her eyes bouncing between his. “I’m so sorry, Aaron.” She’d been miserable. She slept on his side of the bed. Ate across from an empty table. Watched nothing on the TV because every show was theirs or Jack’s. She was empty. Unwound. 

“I love you.”

At that moment, the entire team saw. Outside the door, unable to do anything except read lips and watch behavior. They see the gentle way that Emily soothes Hotch’s overworked soul. They see the way that they lean into one another, the way their hands wander down each other's bodies. They see Emily break down, finally. 

“You’re my home,” she blurts out, her mouth not far from his. Their nose brush as they both draw in deep breaths. “You said you wished we never meet so that I wouldn’t have been with you on the plane but you are my home.”

She’s worried for a moment that she’s missed her point but then his hands come up and pull her face to his. 

“And you’re my touchstone.”


	8. Jack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I'll ever be done writing this story

“Come on.”

After a week, it was apparent that Aaron’s body was finally strong enough to regulate his body temperature at a normal rate. They no longer needed to cover him in towering blankets and strip him to his underwear the next. 

They still weren’t out of the clear. 

After three days of normal, healthy ninety-eight degrees it suddenly spiked.

“I’ve got him,” there are nurses and doctors waiting on them, all standing and watching the man who seems unable to think let alone keep himself upright. “We’ll be okay.” The last statement is directed to Morgan and Rossi who are both ready to move across the room and collected Hotch from her arms. 

After the episode in the physical therapy room, things had finally calmed down. They were on a schedule and it worked. Hotch was never alone and neither was Jack. 

Even now, as Emily guides Hotch into the bathroom with only a chilly saline mix feeding into his arm, Jack stands close to Reid. His little face hiding the scratchy material of Reid’s well worn maroon sweater. 

She hopes that she can soothe out his worries later but for now, she’s Hotch’s protector. 

“Arms up,” she doesn't bother to embarrass him with just how weak he is. She lifts his arms one at a time and slips the shirt off his body. When he looks up at her, sadness and defeat dark in his brown eyes, she smiles softly. “I love you.”

He leans forward and presses his head into her stomach. She can feel the fever in his skin. The clammy hair that sticks to his forehead and the cold sweat across his neck. 

“Are you okay? We can bring the oxygen in.” She strokes over his hair and he lightly shakes his head. She tilts her head to the unlocked door, still cracked open. “Can someone bring the oxygen?”

She bites away from a smile when she hears the soft sounds of muttering and arguing. No doubt, David Rossi trying to bully his way into the bathroom.

“Here you go, ma’am.” A nurse, smiling and kind, hands her the canal and then pushes the tank to her. The man is dressed in scrubs that make him look like he was called just to be around when bathing is needed. He does rather strong and she almost considers asking him for help.

She chooses against it. 

Careful, she slides the canal around his ears and under his nose. “It’s not as good as the mask but…”

He looks up, weary exhaustion in the dark circles under his eyes. 

“Right, we’ll be okay.”

She tests the temperature of the water again, making sure it’s not too hot. She knows he likes his showers basically cold. She had taunted him for that only a few months ago. Now, she’s just glad he’s in the room alive. 

“Come on.” She’s gentle and sure about where and how she places her hands on his body. She’s undone his pants enough to know what to do. He even offers a slightly mischievous grin when she looks up, she kisses his forehead. “Easy.” That smile is gone by the time he’s eased into the bathroom. 

She can see the pain etched into his forehead. 

She drags a cloth over his hair, holding the oxygen tubing away from the water as she does so.

“I brought your favorite bottoms,” she says, attempting to fill in the silence. To draw his mind from how weak he is. “Well, my favorite bottoms.” It’s her turn to grin mischievously,” it’s not really my fault. It should be illegal to look that hot in a pair of plaid pants.”

He glances at her,” Emily.” His voice is raspy and it looks like the effort he put into her name being clear and even was exhausting. He sags forward in the tub, no doubt hurting his still broken ribs. “...don’t…” he grunts around a cough, protecting his sides with his hands. “Deserve.”

He looks at her desperately. Breathing in through his nose as well as he can. 

She cups his cheek, thumb scratching at the beard that’s grown there. “Stop. Okay? I’m in the way, way too deep to come crawling out now. You sucked me into your Hotchner world. Made me fall in love when I specifically remember telling you that there would be none of that.” She kisses his cheek,” so just… let me love you.”

She washes his hair. Mocks him by looking away when he washes his body. Even helps him back out of the tub to sit on the toilet so she can shave his beard.

“Are you sure?” The cream is slathered across his face but she’s conflicted. She likes this rogue beard and she’s terrified she’s gonna cut him. 

“Trust you,” he whispers and straightens his back as well as he can, lifting his chin. 

She draws the razor down carefully. She had lifted the oxygen off of his face and she can already hear the change in his voice. She can only hope that whatever is plaguing him is not bronchitis or pneumonia. 

“Shit,” she wipes away a spot of blood, smearing it into his skin. “This was a bad idea,” he simply looks at her and takes a deep breath. “Right, I’ve got this.”

Somehow she manages and even gets an approving nod out of Hotch. 

 

 

“What was it like?”

When she was studying psychology, before she found that she had a better knack for languages, she got really into Developmental psychology. She was drawn in by this invisible hand that kept reminding her how odd and unique a child’s mind is. She’s found her time working with children very beneficial when she spends time with Jack.

He is an old spirit stuck in the body of an eight-year-old. Yet, he reminds her often that he still is a child. 

Emily looks away from her magazine. She’s just skim reading an article about teenage pregnancy rates and it’s not very interesting. It just keeps throwing her back in time to her own experiences. 

“What was what like, buddy?” She isn’t always sure how to talk to Jack. He really doesn’t like being treated like a child, even if he is. Keeping him in the dark has never worked before. If Hotch always tells the boy the honest truth well she should too. 

Jack is looking at his father. The older man is laying white as the sheets underneath him. A mask, delivering cold oxygen to directly to his airways, sits over his face. “When Mommy died, Daddy told me about it. Will you tell me what happened? Out there? Why did it make him sick?”

She looks back to Hotch, wishes for him to suddenly spur up with that odd excitement that he gets at the strangest times. She gets no reaction. He remains prone, his head tilted slightly so that it looks like he might be looking at her. His breath fogs the mask every few seconds. Accompanied by a raspy draw of air and a choked exhale. 

She has no answer for him. She doesn’t even know her- That’s a lie. She knows that his immune system crashed because he over exhausted himself. 

“Your dad,” suddenly she’s just really stuck. “He’s a stubborn man. He’s not right now but he’ll fine, you know that?”

He just looks at her with this face. She thinks she’s actually seen Hotch use the same face. It’s this confused but eager to understand face. Actually, she knows she’s seen it on him now because it’s the face Aaron makes when he speaks in another language.

Jack bites his lower lip, chewing it between his teeth until he brings his hand to his lips. He pulls at the nail there with the ends of his teeth. She wonders if he’s picked that habit up from her. Is that kind of thing genetic or environmental?

“Are you sure?” 

It’s easy to forget that she’s talking to a little boy who has gone through more pain and loss at eight than most people do by twenty. So she has to be sure. She must.

“Of course.” She leans over her chair, reaching over to him and taking his small hand in hers. “I’ll be here. Alright? I’ll take care of all of this.”

Jack nods somberly. Something is still on his mind.

“Is there something else, Jack?” He’s always trusted her. He may have a bond with his father but he has something completely different with Emily. He doesn’t have to like her or even care about her but he likes her. 

Growing up in a house where his only memory of his mother is of the day she died and the GI Joe men he played with, he always needed someone to look up to. His father threw himself into work and Jack never stopped loving him but they get each other on a fundamental level. It’s just that Jack is the kind of independent child that his father was, just for opposite reasons. That’s terrifying to Hotch.

“I promised Mommy that I’d make sure Dad was okay. To keep him safe and…” Jack looks up at her with those sad brown eyes. The same ones that she’d seen Hotch throw at her a thousand times before.

Emily shakes her head,” listen to me, baby.” She holds his face in her hands,” your mommy is so proud of you. You take care of your daddy and your mommy and I are so thankful, you know that?” She watches for a reaction in his eyes,” you stop worrying about your daddy. Hotchner’s come built pretty tough. Nothing can break him. He’s a good guy.”

She nods her head as reassuring as she can, hoping that something sticks. “Why don’t you climb up there with him, huh? I’ve got some friends stopping by tomorrow and I’m sure they’re gonna want to meet you. So you better get some sleep.”

She helps the little Hotchner on to the bed and soothes out the worry lines that protrude off of Aaron’s forehead when he feels the bed shift.

When they’re both back to sleep, she leans back into her chair and shakes her head. There must be something more she can do. This is such a mess...


	9. Fin

“Easy,” his hand grips the rail so tight that his knuckles pale from the lack of blood. “Aaron,” her tone is warning because she knows that if he doens’t stop that they’ll both end up on the floor.

He gives his head one nod and the male nurse, the one that had been standing next to her, comes calmly to Aaron’s aid. Wordlessly, the other man takes Aaron’s weight and helps him the wheelchair only a few feet away.

“H. man, I hear you’ve been holding back on me.” The nurse ignores the way Aaron tilts his head back, craning his neck but opening his airway just as the doctor had taught him. “You’ve got a kid? You didn’t tell me that! Then I gotta hear, from that cute little tech girl that you’ve practically adopted two more!”

Aaron cracks one eye open and Emily has to hide a smile with the palm of her hand.

“Andy?” Emily knows the ‘Hotch glare’ better than most people and right now, with his sweat leaving his hair drenched and a nasal canal snaking around his heaving chest, he’s giving one out. “Don’t flirt with my team.”

Andy grins, which Emily smiles at too because when she met the man, she instantly liked him. He just has a personality that she knew Aaron wouldn’t be able to bully and he made for great conversations. “No problem, boss.”

The three of them go back to Aaron’s room but, to their surprise, find it mostly full. 

“You look disgusting,” Rossi tells him, a small smile on his lips as he looks over his best friend and protege. “And you smell about as well.”

Andy waits and helps Aaron back onto the bed, even making sure that the other man can lift his legs high enough to clear the bed. “Sir, you’ve got the lankiest pair a legs on a man I’ve ever seen. You wear them well.”

Aaron doesn’t even attempt to say much else he just leans into the pillows and closes his eyes, not looking when Emily wraps the cord back to where they need to be. “Thank you, Andy.”

“You got it,” Aaron misses it but Andy gives him a mock solute and excuses himself from the room. After, he gives Garcia a look over and a wink.

“I see they like you here,” the section’s chief's voice breaks through the room unevenly. To her voice, Aaron cracks an eye open and seats upright. “Easy,” Strauss warns when she sees the poorly hidden pain in his eyes. “I know I sent you over to Pakistan but I’m pretty sure they still didn’t teach you anything about authority.”

There is a hint of amusement in Aaron’s eyes. It’s a soft jab because there are no hard feelings between them and they both know Strauss didn’t send Aaron away after Emily’s ‘death’.

“No, ma’am.” He agrees and eases back into the pillows at Emily’s prompting.

Strauss eyes Emily but doesn’t seem to have anything to say about the obvious affection they are sharing. “Good. I can’t have anyone breaking that spirit of yours now. I come bearing gifts.” She steps out of the doorway to reveal-

“Hey,” Aaron fixes the three children staring at him, from the door, with a lazy grin. In the mix, his blonde son looks almost too much like Sarah who has a tight grip on Sam’s shirt. They look like siblings.

“Hey, Daddy.” Jack peeks up, being the first to move out of the children. 

This spurs Sam forward too,” Hey Aaron.”

While Jack has no worries about climbing on to his father’s bed, Sarah stands at the edge. She has one finger tucked into her mouth with the other hand wrapped into Sam’s shirt. 

“Come on,” Aaron pats the bed and smiles at the little girl. When Emily lifts her up, Aaron fixes his look on Sam. It’s not a glare but the room can still feel the tension. “Did you do what we talked about?”

Sam glances around the room, his soft eyes hesitating on Rossi and Emily. “Someone’s coming this afternoon.”

Strauss nods her agreement,” he’s entrusted in our care until then.”

Aaron looks Sam over and reaches his hand out, looking as if he might shake the younger man’s hand. “I know what you’re feeling,” Sam knows what’s happening though and moves to the bed and is held into a tight hug. “It feels wrong but what he did… Sam, no one who loves you does that. Do you hear me? No one. He doesn’t love you.”

Sam nods, and although no one can hear the younger man’s sobs they know.

Rossi looks away, simply understanding from the look on Hotch’s face the turmoils that they are dealing with.

He had seen Hotch look like that only three and both times it was for children who were afraid to stand up to an abusive parent. Hotch had only been successful with one child, a little girl. She was the only one to ever make it.

“It’s okay now, Sam.” Sarah curls up into his side and he pushes away the thought of her mother. The woman never made it home, she died before the team even got there. “We’re all okay.” Jack lays down in his lap, curling up on his waist. “No one’s going to hurt you now. Never again.”

Rossi isn’t sure what Aaron means by that and neither does Aaron. Yet, he knows he isn’t lying.

It really will be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anything you guys would like to see me write next? Anything at all?


End file.
